in the name of love
by mrie
Summary: One year after Kagome left, Inuyasha is back on the other side of the well, ready to say everything he never could before. Which would be all fine and dandy, if he wasn't in animal form. Or - more specifically - if he wasn't a cat.
1. chances

**note:** Hi! First Inuyasha fic, hello hello. Let's see if it amount to anything more than this.

Some notes: Very dramatic beginning. I know. This is supposed to be funny, but I am not a funny writer. It will get more humorous, methinks. Also: _The voice._ Totally ridiculous and unlikely. But, _Inuyasha?_ Is also often ridiculous and unlikely. I love it all the same.

Finally: I like to write in little pieces. This will not be a one two three story. I am thinking drabbles that lead to an end.

* * *

**chapter one: chances**

* * *

He knew he was asleep because Kagome was smiling at him.

Loss is a heavy thing, a solid reality, and he could feel it even here, in his dreamworld. It was reminding him – even as Kagome laughed, smiled, said his name – that this was not real, could not be real, because Kagome was gone and his heart could not be tricked by the cheap imitations his brain played behind his eyes.

It had been a year. Twelve months, 365 day. One year ago, they had triumphed. One year ago, he had stood on her side on the well, felt that pull, that ache – and _known_. It had been one of the most painful moments of his bitter history – because as he had stood there, 500 years ahead of his time, looking at an overjoyed Kagome who was surrounded by her loving family, who had just been more unselfish than any who had come before her, who had spent so much of her short life sacrificing for everyone and realized… Realized that she deserved the chance to live a life of her choosing.

He let her go.

It had hurt.

It hurt still.

It hurt every second, every hour, even as the hours stretched to weeks that stretched to months that stretch to too long.

He tries very, very hard not to be selfish.

She is with her family, she is with her friends, she is going to that school she loves so much and she is learning about the world. She is growing up, she is growing wise, she is safe amid the hub of people and machines, the never-ending food and the consistent, strong shelter. She is safe and healthy and she is happy and that is all he wants in the entire world.

(But that is a lie. That is a lie because that is not all Inuyasha wants. Inuyasha wants Kagome, too.)

* * *

He is dreaming again, and there is blackness all around, inky and thick, at once suffocating and smooth.

Inuyahsa is reminded of the bowels of the jewel, of those moments of pounding terror, and memory of panic makes the blankness a nightmare.

Then there is a voice, and it is everything.

"You are fated for her."

There is no body for his to move, but Inuyasha's mind searches for the source of the sound. It is futile, and there is a pressure in his chest. He tries to wake up, but the darkness has settled over him, thick and confining.

The voice speaks again, huge and everywhere, everything.

"You will have another chance, if you choose to take it."

Inuyasha stops his struggling against nothing, focuses on the words and the meaning. This is a dream, this is his own mind, this is nothing and he will not remember it by dinner tomorrow. But hope burns warm in his belly, a hot wild thing, and he is desperation feels like belief. _Why?_ he wonders. _How?_ And then, fervent, desperate, tinted by memories of warm eyes and soft fingers, _Please, I need her. _

The voice seems to hear.

"It will not be easy. She will not know you."

Again, Inuyasha is confused. But Kagome's face is smiling in his mind's eye, and he is thinking that the voice is a fool, because he knows her and she knows him and theirs is a bond than runs deeper than knowledge and truer than memory. _Yes_, he thinks, projecting the emotion of acceptance, even though he doesn't know what he is getting himself into.

_Yes._

There are no more words, but the darkness impossibly shifts in agreement.

* * *

Inyuasha wakes up easily.

The not-quite dream burns in his eyes, a solid thing, not-feathering away but staying with him. Inuyasha blinks in wonder and confusion. Then he sighs, because his unconscious in taunting him and he hates it.

Something white flicks by his side.

He turns his head. It is a tail.

All of a sudden, everything hits him.

With a yowl, he springs to his feet. His very small, dainty, paws. Around him, the world roars to life, as if could only just hear it. Scents he thought he would never smell again make him dizzy with their foreign force.

He is in Kagome's world.

Everything is too big.

Everything looks a little strange.

Everything feels odd.

With a screaming hiss, Inuyasha realizes what has happened.

The dog boy is a cat.


	2. on my mind

**chapter two: on my mind**

* * *

In truth, Kagome has gotten better.

She only thinks about them once a _minute_, nowadays. And she only cries on occasion.

But today _is_ an occasion, so when she wakes up she doesn't have to look at the calendar, and she knows better than to try the well. This doesn't stop her from doing either.

One year gone and Kagome finds herself with dirt on her knees, tears in her eyes, and in her mother's arms.

"I miss them," she hiccups. Red hair and warm hands and kind eyes and wide skies and hours of rolling countryside and gold eyes and something in her is breaking, all over again. "_I miss them._"


	3. lost and found

**lost**

* * *

It takes him too long to realize where he is.

Everything is taking too long. Doesn't the universe understand that he needs to find Kagome _now_? Inuyasha flicks his new tail in anger, swivels his little head and adjusts his out of proportion ears. His temper is making his nervousness boil away into anger. Where is Kagome?

His new sense of smell is different, off. It makes the world taste funny. It is like looking at the world through tinted goggles, or something. It is all annoying and maddening because he knows he is in the future but he can't figure out _where._ And he needs to figure out where he is, needs to figure out _now. _He paces on his little feet and searches with wide, slit-pupil-ed eyes.

But _then_.

Then everything is ok, because the foreign world fits into his memories and he knows where he is. By extension, he knows where Kagome is.

The shrine is this way. This way.

His new body moves fast enough, at least.

Inuyasha is homeward bound.

* * *

**and found**

* * *

He sees her and everything else disappears.

In the fleeting space of time between one heartbeat and the next, he evaluates the little ways one year has changed her. Her hair is longer, curling wild down her back, a darker brown than before. The winter has made her pale, and there is a new slightness to her arms, in the hollows of her cheeks, that he is not sure he approves of. But she is lovely, the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, so stunning that he actually lets his conscious mind acknowledge it, and before he has considered or thought or taken a breath, he is running to her.

And then he is rubbing his lithe cat body against her legs, twisting and pressing and there is a rumble in his chest that tells him he is purring. It is all quite undignified, and in the back of the back of his mind, he wonders what the Inuyasha of years past would think, to see himself here. That Inuyasha was tough and rough – he bowed to no one, wanted for nothing – he would not _purr_ for a little snippet of a girl who only looked at him in amused confusion and says, "Hello kitty" in a soft voice. But that was Inuyasha before her. That was the Inuyasha who had forgotten that love could be more than half-acceptance and mutual need, that didn't know what it felt like to care for someone so deeply, in so many ways, that they hallowed you out of all your darkness and gave you warm light instead. That Inuyasha was lonely, and now, now Inuyasha is not lonely, he is not empty, he is pressing himself against the warmth of Kagome's legs and trying to tell her how much it, this, _she _means to him and –

Deep down in the corners and the secrets of his heart, Inuyasha is crying for joy.


	4. oddity

**TRUE STORY:** There is cat sitting on my back, kneading away. I am annoyed with her, because now she's standing on the computer keyboard and her nail is in my face.

* * *

**oddity**

* * *

Kagome does not know what to do with the strange cat.

Even now, five minutes later, it is still purring with a sort of wild contentment that confuses her. Does it think it knows her? Is it a dumb cat? She has it up in her arms, hoisted to her chest, trying to think even as its sleek head pushes under her chin, rubs against her cheeks.

"You can't follow me to school," she tells it. In response, a rough, scratchy tongue runs the length of her cheek. Kagome almost drops the creature in shock.

But the silly thing is still purring up a storm, and when she puts it down she can hardly walk for the way it loops around her ankles. Besides, it might get ran over if she just leaves it. She should bring it home but she doesn't have the time, and being late for school is not an option in Kagome's mind, and the school is safely removed from any major roads, and -

Decisions reached, Kagome scoops the cat up adjusts her grip on the furry body before continuing on her way.

"I guess I'm bringing you to school," she says.

The cat just keeps purring. Kagome gets the feeling that even if it could understand her, it was too busy being happy about… something… to pay attention.

* * *

The cat is at the window.

Seriously.

Kagome gapes in shock.

It is at the _window._

It is staring at her like it can see her. Like it knows who she is. Like it has been looking for her.

She's on the third floor. How did it get up here? _Why?_

The cat is stupid. There is no other explanation. Stupid and convinced she looks like someone it knows.

Her fellow students are staring, too. The teacher turns around to a class that is watching a white cat pace back and forth along the outside of the window. On the window ledge. The very narrow, third story window ledge.

"What in the world?" The teacher stares too. "Who's cat -?"

Kagome's indecision lasts only as long as it takes her responsible, caring side to overrule the small, logical voice in her mind.

"Mine," she whispers, raising her hand.

* * *

Inuyasha has always been very, very bad at being reasonable.

Rationality is also an issue. And now that he is back with Kagome, even simple brain function seems but a distant dream.

It is later in the afternoon and she is carrying him once more. He is not yet over the fact that he is here, that she is holding him, that even with the misfortune of being a cat she doesn't recognize he feels like the luckiest being to ever walk the planet. And so he is rubbing his face against her chin, purring and purring to the chant in his brain of _I missed you I missed you I missed you I missed you. _Kagome's admonitions are a background to his joy.

"You are a crazy cat. I cannot believe you. Do you know how much school I have missed already? And to go home for a stupid cat that – that – "

Inuyasha licks her nose and purrs as he rubs his cheek to hers.

Kagome melts.

Her grip tightens and she cuddles him closer. "_Awww. _But you're so cute, aren't you?"

"- And I didn't know what to do!" Kagome tells her mother, hoisting the cat (still purring and cuddling up against her) for emphasis. "They told me to take him home and I couldn't think of anything else and –"

"Kagome," her mother says, "it's ok."

Kagome sighs and sets the cat down. It sits on her foot and rubs its cheek against her tight-clad leg. She smiles despite herself and says, "It really likes me."

"I can see that."

"I think… I think I better put up some posters."

"That would be good, darling." Kagome's mother watches the way her daughter crouches down to the cat, giggles when it butts its head against her fingers, the continues purr a small motor. The sadness that haunted her face that morning is gone, replaced with that smaller, lighter look of loss that hasn't faded in a year. "If no one claims him," she tells her daughter, "I am sure Buyo wouldn't mind a friend."

The purr stops suddenly, and the cat looks away from Kagome and up at Mrs. Higurashi with a focus that is startling. Then the purring stops and the white body winds itself around her ankles once before returning to Kagome, whose shocked laughter fills the kitchen.

* * *

**end note:** Totally not pertaining to the story but humor me, lovelies: What's a great/intelligent/adventure-filled/anime-esque(if that makes sense)/awesome/romance book? (Also, the more magic and fantasy the better.) Because I have a surplus of free time and a bookstore with coffee and comfy chairs calling my name


End file.
